‘Dark’ Season 1 Recap & Review

Article contributed by Isabella Haberstock

Out of all the Netflix originals that have come out in recent years, Dark is one of the most intriguing and unique. After success with the German show’s first season, a second season will be released on June 21st of this year. With this season comes many more plot twists, cliffhangers, and journeys through time that will have every fan of the show on the edges of their seats. Before watching the second season, however, it would be a good idea to refresh yourself on everything that happened in the first season of Dark. Here is a brief recap of each episode of the season and my overall thoughts on the show so far.

Episode 1: Secrets/Geheimnisse

The episode opens with the suicide of Michael Kahnwald in June of 2019, and his suicide note was hidden away by his mother, Ines Kahnwald. The episode flashes forward a few months, where Michael’s son, Jonas Kahnwald, returns to the local high school in Winden, Germany after months of psychiatric treatment. It is soon discovered that the school’s drug dealer, Erik Obendorf, has been missing for a couple weeks. Police officer Ulrich Nielsen is assigned to the case, but he is distracted due to his affair with Jonas’s mother, Hannah Kahnwald. Ulrich’s wife Katharina is the principle of the high school, and they have three kids together: Martha, Magnus, and Mikkel. The Nielsen kids, Jonas, and their friends Bartosz Tiedemann and Franziska Doppler try to search for Erik’s weed stash in a cave in a nearby forest. There are strange sounds and flashing lights, and Mikkel, the youngest Nielsen child, disappeared. As the police were searching the area for Mikkel, they find the body of a young boy dressed in 80’s clothes, but he is not Mikkel. The boy’s entire eye area was completely burnt, and his ears were bleeding. The episode concludes with an unknown man in a room covered with bright wallpaper strapping Erik Obendorf into a chair with a metal piece covering his eyes.

Episode 2: Lies/Lügen

After his son Mikkel disappeared, Ulrich is reminded of a similar event happening in 1986 when his younger brother Mads vanished. Ulrich tries to search the cave where Mikkel disappeared and finds a locked door leading to a nuclear power plant that supplies Winden with energy. The director of the plant is Bartosz’s father, Aleksander Tiedemann, and he refuses to let Ulrich investigate. Ulrich’s boss, police chief Charlotte Doppler, is told of the unknown dead boy found in the woods. As she is leaving the police station, streetlights flicker and dead birds fall from the sky. In a different part of town, a hooded stranger checks into a hotel owned by Bartosz’s mother, Regina Tiedemann. Ulrich visits his mother, Jana Nielsen, and asks her about the night that Mads disappeared in 1986. She lies and says that her husband, Tronte, was with her that night, even though he was not in the house for hours. The episode ends with Mikkel waking up in the cave and running home, only to discover that he is in the year 1986.

Episode 3: Past and Present/Gestern und Heute

This episode opens in 1986 after Mads Nielsen disappeared, where Mikkel goes to the police station in hopes of finding out how to get home. The police officer at the time, Egon Tiedemann, suspects that Mikkel got beat up by teenage Ulrich Nielson. Egon takes Mikkel to the hospital, where he is taken care of by nurse Ines Kahnwald. At the nuclear plant, the new director Claudia Tiedemann (Egon’s daughter, Regina’s mother) meets a security guard named Helge Doppler, who gives her a book called A Journey Through Time by H.G. Tannhaus. Similarly to what’s happening in 2019, teenage Charlotte sees birds falling from the sky. Also at the high school, Hannah has a crush on Ulrich, and Regina Tiedemann is a victim of bullying by Ulrich and Katharina. A man in an unknown location surrounded by clocks builds a small machine. Back at the hospital, Mikkel sneaks back to the cave, but he injures himself and starts to call for help. In 2019, Ulrich hears Mikkel as he is looking through the caves.

Episode 4: Double Lives/Doppelleben

In 2019, Jonas looks through maps and notes on the caves he found in his house. Meanwhile, Charlotte Doppler tries to find a connection between the disappearances and the dead birds, which also have ruptured eardrums. Her marriage to Peter Doppler is falling apart because she found out he was having an affair and lied about his alibi the night Mikkel disappeared. Their younger daughter Elisabeth goes missing after school, but she comes home that night and says she met a man named Noah. Noah gave Elisabeth a watch that had once belonged to Charlotte. Meanwhile, Peter’s father, Helge Doppler, is found walking around the woods. He said he must find Noah, but because he has dementia, no one takes it seriously.

Episode 5: Truths/Wahrheiten

In 1986, Mikkel is taken back to hospital and visited by a priest named Noah. Hannah sets the police after Ulrich to arrest him by falsely accusing him of raping Katharina. In 2019, Elisabeth Doppler’s friend Yasin goes missing after talking to Noah. Charlotte accuses Peter of being involved in the disappearances, but he denies it. At Regina Tiedemann’s hotel, the stranger tells her to deliver a package to Jonas. Bartosz Tiedemann meets Erik Obendorf’s supplier, Noah. A few days later, Jonas receives the package from the stranger containing a light, a Geiger counter, and Michael Kahnwald’s suicide letter. The letter reveals that Michael Kahnwald was actually Mikkel Nielsen, who accidentally traveled back to 1986, married Hannah, fathered Jonas, and has now committed suicide in the present day.

Episode 6: “Thus the world was created”/”Sic Mundus Creatus Est”

In 2019, Ulrich finds out his father Tronte was having an affair with Claudia Tiedemann (Regina’s mother) when Mads went missing in 1986. Ulrich also finds out that Regina was the last person to see Mads alive, but instead of helping him, Regina tells him that Hannah was the one that framed him for raping Katharina. Ulrich then goes to the morgue to see the dead boy found in the woods and realizes it is Mads’s body, which had not aged for the past 33 years. Meanwhile, Jonas goes into the cave with the map given to him by the stranger and finds a little door with the phrase “Sic mundus creatus est” (“Thus the world was created”) written on it. He goes through the door and out of the cave to find posters for Mads Nielsen’s disappearance. The episode ends with teenage Hannah offering Jonas a ride.

Episode 7: Crossroads/Kreuzwege

In 2019, the police finally have clearance to search the power plant. Charlotte Doppler finds a door in the caves that is welded shut. Ulrich discovers that Charlotte’s father-in-law, Helge Doppler, was a suspect in Mads’s disappearance in 1986 but was never interviewed. Ulrich goes to a nursing home to confront Helge. The nurses at the home kick out Ulrich for upsetting Helge, and he is suspended from the police force for his actions. In her investigation, Charlotte discovers that the cave system goes under a cabin in the woods owned by Helge. She receives a voice mail from Ulrich, who told her that Helge is the kidnapper from 1986 and 2019. That night, Helge leaves the nursing home, followed closely by Ulrich. In 1986, the stranger warns Jonas that taking Mikkel back to 2019 will rip a hole in time, Meanwhile, 1986 Helge and Noah move Yasin’s dead body out of a bunker.

Episode 8: As You Sow, So You Shall Reap/Was man sät, das wird man ernten

This episode begins in the year 1953, where the bodies of Erik and Yasin are discovered near the construction site of the nuclear power plant. Police officer Egon Tiedemann is investigating the scene. Ulrich goes through the caves to 1953 and meets Agnes Nielsen (his grandmother) and her son Tronte (his father) who are renting a room in the Tiedemann house. He also meets H.G. Tannhaus, but this was before he wrote A Journey Through Time. Young Ines Kahnwald and Jana (Ulrich’s mother) tell Ulrich about the boys’ bodies. He finds Helge Doppler, a young child at the time, and Ulrich thinks that killing Helge will stop the killings from happening. He chases and beats Helge, leaving him for dead in the bunker behind the Doppler cabin. In 1986, the stranger meets an older H.G. Tannhaus, who believes that time travel through wormholes is possible. The stranger tells him that a wormhole allowing people to travel in 33-year intervals does exist in Winden. The stranger wants to destroy the wormhole and asks Tannhaus to fix a machine that will allow him to do that.

Episode 9: Everything Is Now/Alles ist Jetzt

In 1986, Ulrich is acquitted from his rape charges. Claudia Tiedemann finds her dog Gretchen, who disappeared in 1953, by the caves. Noah and Helge argue, and it is revealed that the children died because of Noah’s failed attempts to create a working time machine. In 2019, Bartosz Tiedemann is visited by his grandmother Claudia, whom everyone thought to be dead. Later, Bartosz is approached by Noah and agrees to be in business with him. In 1953, Helge is reported missing by his mother, who is visited by Noah (it is worth noting that he looks the same age every time he is seen). Ulrich is arrested for Helge’s murder, but Helge did not actually die and none of the killings were stopped.

Episode 10: Alpha and Omega/Alpha und Omega

The season finale opens on the night of Mikkel’s disappearance. Peter Doppler goes to the cabin, and Mads’s body suddenly appears in front of him. Claudia Tiedemann arrives to tell him to move the body where it will be found the following day. In 1986, Noah and Helge find and kidnap Jonas when he tries to bring Mikkel back to 2019. Jonas wakes up in the bunker with the stranger, who reveals himself to be an older Jonas. Adult Jonas leaves to destroy the wormhole with his repaired machine. In 2019, Noah tells Bartosz that Claudia is the real enemy, and she has sent adult Jonas to unknowingly create the wormhole instead of destroy it. In 1953, young Helge wakes up as a wormhole appears in front of him in the bunker, connecting him to Jonas in 1986. They reach for each other, and Helge is transported to 1986. Jonas is transported to 2052 in a post-apocalyptic Winden.

Season Review

I don’t remember how I found this show, but I am so glad that I did. This is the first German show I have ever watched, and it has a vibe that is similar to Stranger Things yet very distinct. This show manages to seamlessly weave together three different time periods with tons of characters of many different ages. Even though the concept of time travel and the cyclical nature of time is an extremely difficult concept to understand, Dark does a very thorough job of explaining how events from different time periods can influence each other in a non-linear way. Dark is complex and suspenseful, and there was clearly a lot of effort put into developing the main four families that the story focuses on. Each character was detailed and given attention, and they all fit into their respective time periods and the story as a whole. Dark gets a 9/10.

Season 2 of Dark premieres June 21st on Netflix.

What did you think of season 1 of Dark? Tell us in the comments below!